M. M. Ill: SEAL TYPES AND GREATER ART 679

Not only is their general character foreign to that revealed by Late
Minoan seals from various sources, but the presence of certain specimens
with hieroglyphic sign-groups shows that some of the clay nodules belong to
the early part of the Middle Minoan Age.1 The geometrical and decorative
patterns on these sealings have also, as will be shown, early associations.

In form, moreover, some of the Zakro nodules closely approach those
of the Hieroglyphic Deposit at Knossos, though others show a great resem-
blance to those of the Temple Repository. With them moreover occurred
a clay 'roundel' of the same form as those there found with a graffito in-
scription of the linear Class A.

As in both the above cases, the)' bear the impress of very fine threads
which seem to have fastened small documents, and at other times show a small
perforation along their major axis, which had originally held the remains of
string for securing various objects. Some of the types bear a transitional
character, and it is difficult to say on which side of the border they
individually belong. Few, however, can be classed with typical Late Minoan
designs such as we meet with for instance on the intaglios found in the
Vapheio Tomb, the lower limit of which as we know from the associated
pottery, belongs to the later phase of L. M. I.

The hoard found in the 'Room of the Seals' at Hacqa Triada HacWa

Triadi

numbered over 450 sealings, mostly counter-marked with signs of Class A.2 Hoard.
Many types of this hoard bear a strong similarity with those from the Temple
Repository at Knossos, while others repeat compound or fantastic designs of
the Zakro class. The sealings are of a roughly faced pyramidal form with
seal impressions either on one side or on the base, and perforated at the apex
for the string that suspended them to documents. A few showed traces of
having been applied, as sealing-wax is still, to the bands or strings wrapped
round packets. Traces of this practice also occurred among the Knossian Speci-
sealings. In other cases the clay nodule had been pressed round the knot ™chaj°f
that had tied the parcel. costumes

A common feature in the seal-types presented by all three hoards is the ings of
archaic character of the costume in the figured subjects. These generally boards
occur on long oval fields which we may take to represent the bezels of signet

1 One of these nodules, No. 125 of Mr.
Hogarth's list, had been impressed by an ob-
long bead-seal showing three hieroglyphs of the
advanced class (B), ascribed above to M. M.
II (Scrip/a Minoa, i, p. 157, P. 45). Another
impression—probably of a three-sided steatite

' prism '-seal—(op. cif., i, p. 151, P. 10, omitted
on PI. I) belongs to Class A, and an unpub-
lished impression (No. 140 of Mr. Hogarth's
list) seems to be of the same class.

2 F. Halbherr, Scoperti ad Haghia Triada
{Mon. Ant., xiii, p. 29, seqq.)